New kids’ book based on Texas bakery a recipe for inclusion

"Love Love Bakery" recounts a day in the life of a bustling bakery based on the real life business Jane & John Dough in Tomball.

"Love Love Bakery" recounts a day in the life of a bustling bakery based on the real life business Jane & John Dough in Tomball.

Photo: Courtesy Sarah Triana Mitchell

Photo: Courtesy Sarah Triana Mitchell

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"Love Love Bakery" recounts a day in the life of a bustling bakery based on the real life business Jane & John Dough in Tomball.

"Love Love Bakery" recounts a day in the life of a bustling bakery based on the real life business Jane & John Dough in Tomball.

Photo: Courtesy Sarah Triana Mitchell

New kids’ book based on Texas bakery a recipe for inclusion

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Eighty teaspoons of salt, 150 cups of flour, 640 tablespoons of butter. Think you know what it takes to run a bakery? You ain’t seen muffin yet.

Relentless bread-based puns are only one reason to pick up a copy of the new children’s book “Love Love Bakery: A Wild Home for All” by author Sarah Triana Mitchell and illustrator Hayley Haynes.

The adorable 40-page text is a fictionalized peek inside the very real Jane & John Dough Bakery in Tomball, a small city outside Houston. The cover shows a cafe located inside a cozy bungalow under a lush green tree — an image anyone who’s visited the business will immediately recognize.

Mitchell captured the welcoming, inclusive spirit she found at the shop and translated it into a lesson about finding a common home among a diverse group of neighbors. In one exchange, baker Jane (based on the real-world chef and baker Jane Wild) explains to her son Leo why all customers, even the messy ones, are precious.

“It’s their home, too: the music makers and the mess makers. Without them, we’d have no flavor, no growth,” says Jane. “Just like —”

“Just like sourdough,” says Leo.

“When you fling your doors wide open,” Jane continues, “love gets in like wild yeast. And we all rise.”

The book doubles as a training guide for future bakers and baristas with a glossary explaining trendy orders such as avocado toast or kombucha and some baking terminology including the difference between dough and batter and what separates a first rise from a second rise. Kiddos are then encouraged to put those terms to use in a recipe for pretzels.